Category Archives:

WP7

Microsoft’s buy-up of Nokia turned quite a few heads in the mobile industry. Consequently, pundits expected rival manufacturers Samsung and HTC to both be ired by this announcement. This can not be father from the truth because their Windows Phones simply don’t sell in meaningful numbers, according to Tamoggemon Holding‘s CEO, Tam Hanna. So they aren’t bothered. These shocking stats were obtained by analysing the purchasers of Tamoggemon’s scientific calculator -TouchCalc. Even more reason for Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, to ditch the manufacturing bits of Nokia like Google has done with Motorola Mobility. Continue reading →

Yet more bad news for BlackBerrry. Windows Phone has overtaken it to become the most popular smartphone platform across Europe’s five biggest markets, including Britain, latest data from Kantar reveals.
In the three months up to the end of August it captured 12 per cent of the UK market, compared to 4.5 per cent the year previously, though it still has a long way to go before it catches up with the Android and Apple OS’s, which respectively account for 56.3 per cent and 27.5 per cent of the market.
Across Europe’s five biggest countries as a whole BlackBerry’s share, meanwhile, fell to 3.7 per cent from 10.1 per cent during the quarter Continue reading →

If you are not acquainted with the wild popularity of dual SIM mobile phones in India, please let me explain. Recently, in India HTC completely discontinued its ultra-popular flagship HTC One (single SIM version) and replaced it with HTC One Dual SIM in collaboration with MNO [Mobile Network Operator] Tata Docomo. The Indian mobile phone market is very similar to Chinese market where consumers prefer value more than anything else. There are almost 481 smartphones on sale in India (including colour variations), out of which, 243 models have dual SIM feature. Almost every popular Android smartphone in the mid-range price segment in India has the dual SIM feature. Continue reading →

There’s nothing like a little adverse publicity to aid your app sales, is there? Well, British software house Pinkfroot seems to have befitted from it in our case. The rumour going around was that its Plane Finder AR app had been banned in the USA. Chiefly because it could allegedly be used as a terrorist tool to shoot down aircraft. Actually, that suggestion was made back in 2010 and the app is very much available in the iTunes App Store now. To prove the point our investigator actually bought a copy of the app. What an effective sales tool that rumour was. Continue reading →

Sales of Windows smartphones have grown by a staggering 240 per cent in a year and now account for 6.2 per cent of the UK market, latest figures from research firm Kantar reveal. In the past year some 700,000 new Windows users were added, while in the three months up to end of January 2013 the Microsoft-based devices – spearheaded by Nokia’s Lumia 800 and HTC’s 8X – surpassed those of BlackBerry in Britain. Continue reading →

Now they say that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones (and more on this later) but … a GoMobile News reader contacted us yesterday to complain that he had loaded an app onto his spanking new Nokia Lumia 820 smartphone and it wouldn’t work. Initially we suspected that it could well be a problem that apps designed for earlier Windows Phone handsets – running Windows Mango W7 or even version 7.8, could encounter problem when run under Windows Phone 8. Now we are not so sure. It could be that the app in question – UK news site, The Register, has problems with all of its apps not just Windows Phone. Continue reading →

Here at GoMobile News we have been awaiting the upgrade to Windows Phone 7.8 (which replaces W7 Mango) with bated breath. Virtually every day since early January [2013] we have been going to the ‘phone update’ page within the handset hoping to see that the upgrade had finally been released. The screen kept saying “No updates found” – even though we had ticked the box which says, “Use my mobile data connection to check for updates.” Then on Friday [February 1st 2013] we needed to use Zune on a PC to check for a particular music track. Imagine our surprise when the screen suddenly asked if we wanted to upgrade. Windows Phone 7.8 (WP7.8) was suddenly there! Continue reading →

The focus and a very high percentage of the analysis over the last few days has focussed on the battle between Samsung and Apple for dominance in the smartphone sector. With a BlackBerry 10 OS handset or handsets set for release in a few days time [January 30th 2013], RIM has drawn some focus as well. But poor old Nokia frequently get left out in the cold. Even though it did quite well in Q4 2012. That said as the accompanying graph illustrates, 2012 saw a gradual decline in the smartphone market for Nokia. Continue reading →

Rating: You can still send and receive texts from your featurephone mates

Here at GoMobile Towers we thought that the market for VoIP mobile apps was already overcrowded. However, it seems that Voxofon has come up with a bit of a new angle. It claims to have overcome the ‘SMS Gap’. Plenty of other VoIP apps allow their users to swap text messages (usually for free). But what happens when you come across a mate who is stubbornly sticking to his or her featurephone (and so can’t run Voxofon)? Voxofon has developed the technology to enable smartphone users to chat with non-smartphone users seamlessly at (obviously reasonable) VoIP rates. Continue reading →

Well there has been a spurgle of stories about the impending release of Windows 7.8 for those with existing W7 Mango (7.5) smartphones. As we all know now such handsets will not be upgradeable to Windows Phone 8, so we will just have to be content with 7.8. Or will we? One site says there is something called Windows Phone 7.x. The drawback to these stories (for us here at GoMobile Towers at least) is that the main source of the leak is a Chinese site – WinP whilst the secondary source is a German site WParea. So we can’t be 100 per cent sure what exact details have been leaked. However, both sites have anonymously received Windows Presentation slides which appear to have emanated from Nokia itself. Continue reading →

Here’s a complete scoop for Nokia www.nokia.com. The struggling handset maker has done an exclusive deal with Red Bull Media House to launch a ‘World of Red Bull’ phone app for its Lumia (W7 Mango) and Asha handsets. The app provides users with access to all of Red Bull’s music, sporting and cultural based content. For Formula One fans this is something of a scoop because red Bull doesn’t just have one team it has two [Red Bull & Toro Rosso]. The application aggregates the latest news, interviews, interactive maps (based on the Nokia’s Maps platform), localised events – along with real time access to athletes, videos and still images. And it’s free. Continue reading →

Storm clouds are thought to be gathering over Finnish phone manufacturer Nokia as it braces itself for its Q3 results tomorrow [18th October 2012] when results are expected to be weak.
Analysts will be looking to see just how poor Nokia’s performance has been in the period, especially for sales of smartphones which are expected to be sluggish despite the introduction of new Lumia handsets based on the Windows Phone operating system. Continue reading →

The Mozilla Firefox OS has been receiving a lot of attention, and for good reason. As an alternative to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone – an open source, HTML 5 based OS could be the solution to problems with the former, and an excellent way of getting hold of lower cost, but still effective, smart phones. For me, the prospect of an OS that can replicate the speed and performance of a web browser without the problems of a proprietary system would be an excellent way to customise and simplify how I use my phone. Continue reading →

What a significant development. UK supermarket Asda – which is effectively the UK incarnation of the USA’s Walmart, has sparked off something of a price battle over leading smartphone models. It has decided to drop the price of Nokia’s premier W7 Mango (WP7) handset down to £199. Asda is now offering the Nokia Lumia 800 for £40 less than even Amazon and a whopping £200 less than leading High Street electrical goods retailer, Currys. What cheered GoMobile News up is the price Asda is asking for the Motorola RAZR. It wants £50 more than the Lumia 800. Just goes to show what a great handset the RAZR is, ahead of the official launch of the latest RAZR models in the UK tomorrow [September 18th 2012]. Continue reading →

Those hoping to follow the Formula One motor race today [September 2nd 2012] at Spa Francorchamps on a Windows Phone 7.5 (W7 Mango) smartphone are going to be very disappointed. The Beeb (BBC) has told WP Centralhere in no uncertain terms that it has no plans to develop a version of its iPlayer app for the Microsoft mobile OS for the foreseeable future. What’s more the broadcaster is adamant than there’s a bug in the mobile Internet Explorer app which Microsoft hasn’t fixed despite knowing about it for at least 12 months. Fortunately, GoMobile News has stumbled across a bug fix for those with Android tablets who aren’t be served the iPlayer download correctly. Continue reading →